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Friday, May 11, 2012

Goal of Flipped Class Videos: Content Delivery or Skill Development?

It recently occurred to me that since I began flipping my
world history course in January, each of my screencast lectures have had one
overarching goal: content delivery. This has proven tremendously useful and the
early results, considering both assessment scores and student feedback, are
encouraging. Transitioning some of my
direct instruction (content delivery through lecture) to video has helped students understand some
of the major events and themes from world history, but I realized what I should
shift my focus towards: building social
studies skills!

Since most of our class time is now spent working on such
skills, I now have a better understanding of their ability to engage in such
learning experiences. In sum, I
overestimated many of their abilities.
For example, we recently worked on evaluating the historical
significance of cold war events. Many
students had little trouble telling me what happened, but few could clearly
articulate the importance and global implications of these events and
historical developments.

Then, it dawned on me.
Why not model these social
studies skills through screencasts in a similar way that I have been delivering
content? When I mentioned this idea to
colleagues in my district, they agreed that modeling of these skills is
essential before we expect them to develop them in class. We
quickly brainstormed some skills that we could begin developing screencasts
for:

Historical Significance

Evaluating Validity / Bias in Sources

Developing a Research Paper

Writing (we could go on an on here…)

We also realized that there were several other benefits to
creating skills based screencasts…

If each department member uses the same
screencast to introduce a skill, there will be a clear expectation for students
across subjects and grade levels within you department. (For example, students will no longer be
frustrated with situations where one teacher has vastly different expectations
regarding writing a research paper. )

This will be a great way for teachers to start working
together making screencasts.

Different departments could collaborate on
screencasts. For instance, the English
and Social Studies departments could develop a common research format and show
students through a model screencast.

Of course, flipping your class is not simply about the
videos. I do believe, however, that
modeling skills through screencasts will improve the performance of students as
they engage in often challenging in-class learning experiences.